5G Spectrum Auction 2022- Day 1 Report

As the first day of Spectrum auction 2022 drew to a close today after 4 clock rounds of bidding, the auction will continue tomorrow starting with the fifth round of bidding. We take a look at the various spectrum bands which saw active bidding by the telcos today. Since in this auction, the spectrum availability is ample and the number of participants is low, we will not be seeing the winning prices deviating much from the base price.

600 MHz:

This band saw no interest from any of the operators since the band has not been officially finalised by the ITU and there is no device ecosystem around it.

700 MHz:

This band finally saw some interest this year after being ignored by the operators in the last 2 auctions. At the end of round 4, there there was a demand for 10 Mhz (2 blocks of 5 MHz) in each of the 22 circles which was most probably by Reliance Jio. The remaining 3 blocks remained unsold.

850 MHz:

This band saw limited participation, with only Reliance Jio picking up 5 MHz (4 blocks of 1.25 MHz) in the 4 circles of Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, North East and UP West where it currently holds 5 Mhz so as to complete its Pan India 10 MHz footprint in this band.

900 MHz:

This band also saw limited participation in the auction. Bharti Airtel picked up 3.8 MHz in Assam circle and 5 MHz in Jammu & Kashmir circle. There was also some demand in North East circle, which could be from either Airtel or Vi.

1800 MHz:

In this band there was a demand for 10 MHz in Gujarat circle, 5 MHz in Himachal Pradesh, 5 MHz in Kolkata circle, 10 MHz in Madhya Pradesh, 10 MHz in Maharashtra, 4 MHz in Mumbai, 10 MHz in Rajasthan and there was also some demand in Odisha and UP East circles. These could be from either of the 3 telcos Jio, Airtel and Vi.

2100 MHz:

In this band there was a demand for 1 block of 5 MHz in Bihar, Delhi and Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala and West Bengal circles. These could be from either Airtel or Vi.

2300 MHz:

This band saw no demand in the auction today. No bids were received for this band from any of the operators.

2500 MHz:

Vi picked up one block of 10 MHz in each of the two circles of Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. The remaining spectrum in this band stayed unsold.

3.5 GHz:

Reliance Jio has picked up 100 MHz (10 blocks of 10 MHz) in each of the 22 circles, Bharti Airtel has also picked up 100 MHz pan India and Vi has bought 50 MHz in the 17 priority circles (except for Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, North East and Odisha).

26 GHz:

There were bids received for this band in each of the 22 circles, with serious bids being made only by Jio and Airtel. Jio may have picked up 1000 MHz pan India and Airtel may have picked up 600 to 800 MHz in each of the 22 circles, Vi may have made limited bids in the 17 priority circles where it may have picked up 200 to 400 MHz while it is unlikely any bids would have been made in the non-priority circles. Adani group seems to have bid for a few blocks only in the Gujarat circle.